AMD has recently unveiled its Ryzen Pro lineup, expanding the “Hawk Point” 8040-series to cater to business laptop and workstation users. Simultaneously, the company has introduced the Ryzen 8000 and “Phoenix” APU models designed for business desktop PCs. The Pro series, built upon AMD’s popular consumer processors, boasts additional features tailored specifically for the business sector. Notably, AMD stands out as the pioneer x86 company to introduce its AI-processing Neural Processing Unit (NPU) to the mobile and desktop PC market through client versions of these devices. By equipping specialized CPUs with NPUs for notebooks and workstations, AMD extends the same AI capabilities to business users.
The NPU, powered by AMD’s proprietary XNDA website, positions AMD ahead of Intel’s competing Core Ultra processors in terms of NPU performance. AMD’s NPU outperforms Intel’s Meteor Lake NPU with 16 Heads of performance compared to Intel’s 11 TOPS. Moreover, AMD maintains an edge in total program TOPs, combining CPU and GPU processing power, with 39 TOPS compared to Intel’s 34 TOPS. While Intel is yet to release a desktop computer with an integrated AI engine, AMD’s Ryzen 8000 APUs feature an in-built NPU delivering 16 TOPS.
Both AMD and Intel fall short of meeting Microsoft’s next-gen AI PC requirement of 45 Heads of NPU performance. However, future releases like Intel’s Strix Point and Lunar Lake are expected to bridge this gap. The compatibility of current AMD and Intel processors with Microsoft’s CoPilot AI workloads remains uncertain pending potential Windows updates.
Local AI workload processing addresses critical privacy concerns in the commercial sector while offering advantages in latency, performance, and battery life for AI applications. However, maximizing this performance necessitates tightly integrated software solutions, making developer partnerships crucial in the early stages of the AI dominance race.
Developers are actively shaping the AI ecosystem with NPU acceleration in their products. AMD, alongside Microsoft and other industry players, is laying the groundwork for a wide array of AI-accelerated features in software and Windows. AMD boasts over 150 ISV partnerships to develop AI-driven solutions by 2024, contrasting Intel’s AI Developer Program with 100 ISV and 100+ IHV partnerships to date.
The transition to locally-run AI capabilities commences with hardware considerations. Let’s delve deeper into the silicon.
AMD Ryzen Pro 8040-series Processors
The Ryzen Pro 8040-series processors, derived from the consumer-focused ‘Hawk Point’ processors, offer a Zen 4-powered lineup. The U-series processors target the 15-28W TDP range, while the HS variants span 20-28W and 35-54W categories across the Ryzen 9, 7, and 5 product lines, with 45W models tailored for workstations. Core configurations range from six cores and 12 threads on Ryzen 5 to eight cores and 16 threads on Ryzen 7 and 9, with peak clock rates identical to consumer variants. Notably, the Ryzen 5 Pro 8540U lacks an integrated NPU, aligning with the consumer model while retaining key specifications like clock speeds, iGPU, and cache.
AMD’s benchmarks showcase its processors outperforming Intel’s competing chips across various workloads, with claimed performance advantages and battery life enhancements.
AMD Ryzen Pro 8000-series APUs
The Ryzen Pro 8000-series for desktop PCs builds upon the consumer-oriented 8000G APU series, integrating an NPU AI acceleration engine into each model. The lineup mirrors the consumer models in the Ryzen Pro 3, 5, and 7 families, offering configurations from four cores and eight threads to eight cores and eight threads. AMD touts performance superiority and reduced power consumption compared to Intel’s Core i7-14700 processors.
AMD Ryzen Pro Technologies
Distinguishing AMD’s Pro models from standard consumer chips is the integrated AMD Pro Technologies suite, featuring AMD Pro Security, memory guard, Microsoft Pluton, and AMD Pro Manageability. These suites ensure security, stability, and ease of management for business users, with the 8000-series family being the first to integrate cloud-based remote management and Microsoft Pluton security features.
AMD’s OEM partners now have access to refreshed products based on the Ryzen Pro series.
